Uni Senbei (Unisen) : Classic sea urchin flavored rice crackers

Today, raw sea urchin roe, Uni (雲丹) is widely enjoyed as a luxurious sushi ingredient in the world. Of course, many Japanese love the sushi topping as well.

As the sea urchin roe, Uni has an unique, addicting taste, the seafood is occasionally used as a seasoning in Japan. In fact, there are some Japanese foods flavored with the seafood. For example, the product I introduced a while ago, Neri Uni is a representative of such foods made with sea urchin.

Regarding Japanese snacks, if I give a representative example of the snacks flavored with Uni, what comes to my mind right away is “Uni Sen (うにせん)”, which I picked up this time to introduce.

Uni Senbei (Unisen) : Classic sea urchin flavored rice crackers

The snack name, “Unisen (うにせん)” is composed of 2 words, that is, “Uni (うに)” and “Sen (せん)”. The former word “Uni” means “sea urchin” in Japanese, while the latter “Sen” stands for “Senbei (せんべい)”. Therefore, Unisen is also called “Uni Senbei (うにせんべい)”.

As you may already know, Senbeiis a traditional Japanese rice cracker, so Unisen is the Senbei rice cracker flavored with sea urchin.

The sea urchin flavored rice cracker, Uni Senbei is a classic snack that has been enjoyed by Japanese for a long time. These Unisen snacks are crispy with nice melting feeling in the mouth and have plenty of umami of sea urchin roe. In order to make good use of the original flavor of Uni row, these rice crackers are lightly salted.

Although these snacks are similar to Okaki rice crackers (Amazon.com) in shape, they are Senbei rice crackers because they are made from non-glutinous rice. “Okaki (おかき)” is made from glutinous rice, by the way.

Uni Senbei are available at many supermarkets and some convenience stores in Japan. I bought this product at a 7-eleven convenience store.

The ingredient of Uni Senbei

Since Uni-Sen is the abbreviation for Uni Senbei, the main ingredient is non-glutinous rice. According to the description on the back of the bag, the other ingredients mainly include sea urchin, sugar, mirin, Sake lees, salt, soy sauce, powdered sea urchin roe, and sugar-added egg york.